The Experience Economy Program at Tampere University

Experiences shape who we are, bringing people together, creating lasting memories, and building communities. They are also a driving commercial force in the world. Experiences and experientiality cut through all aspects of our lives, where we can use experiences to enhance our interactions in business, recreation, work, and education.

At Tampere University, we are proud to launch a new program dedicated to understanding and advancing the Experience Economy — a field originally popularized by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, and today more relevant than ever. We are nested within the Faculty of Management and Business (MAB) at Tampere University. Still, we work closely with Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK), other faculties at the university and a wide number of international partners.

In this program, we take the foundational work of Pine & Gilmore as a starting point but also go further: we dive deeper into how experiences are lived, shared, and commercialized in today’s world. We focus on staged experiences — from cultural events and tourism to games, immersive environments, and community-building encounters, and the ways in which experiences are used to enhance our business and community. Our lens includes both individual experience and shared, collective meaning-making.

We are especially interested in how diverse actors — from startups to public institutions to cultural producers, small and large — can take part in the experience economy. Hence, we integrate principles of open strategy, ensuring inclusivity and transparency in the development, testing, and scaling of experiential offerings.

Tampere serves as our living lab. With its vibrant culture, dynamic companies, and ambitious city development, it’s the perfect testbed for experimenting with and studying experiences in action. But our sights are global — we aim to build a network of international researchers and practitioners committed to making experience a source of sustainable growth and meaningful human connection.

If you're passionate about how experiences can make businesses and communities better, we’d love to connect.